Statism: The World's Deadliest Religion

by Will GriggCountless varieties of idolatry and religious delusion exist, and among them easily the deadliest is the peculiar cult called statism. It is the irrational belief in an invisible, intangible abstraction called the State, in whose name an elite priesthood transubstantiates violence and coercion into justice.

Absent the benign intervention of the State’s priesthood, society would collapse, crops would wither, and the sun would withhold its face from humanity. Any social action undertaken without the direct involvement, or at least the blessing, of that anointed elite is at best an act of blasphemy. Statists pretend that critics of government plunder seek nothing less than the abolition of compassion.

It was in the service of that vision that a collectivist commentator recently accused libertarians of seeking to "Close down the homeless shelters… Shut down the Salvation Army… Make it illegal to throw a starving person a coin or toss a blanket over them as they lay on the sidewalk.”

No libertarian objects to private acts of organized compassion, or seeks to use the state to criminalize such generosity. In fact, this is precisely what state and local governments are doing across the country on the assumption that unless compassionate action is licensed by the state, it is a sacrilege.